almightythirst (
almightythirst) wrote2018-05-12 08:29 pm
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Deerington Inbox

Hey there, stranger. Don't think I gotta explain the situation: you called, I didn't pick up. Leave me a message and maybe I'll get back to you.
[ Audio / Video / Text ]
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[ There with them, and not left to her fate in her own world. The one he’d give just about anything to save her from. ]
Not sure I’d want that for her either, but… I could see that. Could see her takin’ to it almost too well. If there was any way to make sure she could come back with us…
[ He’d do it. Even if they would all forget this place after, he’d still take her. They’d meet again, wouldn’t they? ]
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Yeah, she would fit right in.
[ She hands the photo back to McCree, giving it one last long look. ] We're goin' to find a way, come hell or high water. Maybe this is all pretend right now, but she's family and that part ain't pretend.
[ She looks over at the boxes. ] Two left, pick one for me?
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He doesn’t want to think of what would happen now, with them both faced with that choice again. ]
Yeah. She is family, blood be damned.
[ He puts the picture back amongst the rest, then stands to go grab one of the other gifts. He hopes, for Ashe’s sake, there’s nothing in either of them that will rattle her too much. ]
Go on now, don’t leave me in suspense.
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She smiles when she opens her eyes ands looks down at the photo memory of it. She was pretty sure Chloe had been dozing at one point, but sleeping or not, she looked cozy with her eyes closed and her head on Ashe's shoulder. Ashe had a smile on a face as she watched Jesse. ]
This must be why you want that farm.
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Wouldn’t be half bad, would it? Not that I’d set up shop anywhere where it snows this damn much.
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Yeah, when we get back, I am never leavin' the desert.
[ She smiles peacefully at the photo, before setting it aside. This left just the future. ] One box left, hopefully it ain't a picture of a gravestone. [ She got up to get it. ]
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[ He still worries, of course, that there will be something dark and dire in that box. You never can tell around here when you might get an unpleasant surprise. But realistically, he expects something inoffensive as he waits, legs crossed, an arm resting on the back of the couch behind where Ashe was sitting. ]
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Unlike the last two memories, this one feels a bit more vague, but it comes into clearer focus. She could see herself, propped up in an unfamiliar bed. McCree is there but for a moment he's turned away from her. She just watches him, feeling a joy that was so pure that she wasn't sure she'd ever felt it. It was raw and innocent. When he turns around he has the tiniest human in his arms and she can see that he looks overjoyed himself.
"Hey there...I'm your daddy.."
He walks over to the bedside and takes a seat finally looking up at her, with the goofiest grin. "Hey Liz...we're a family..." The moment is intimate. A family. Not found. Not thrown together by circumstance and violence. Not that Deadlock wasn't family, but this was forged by blood and love and the thing she'd been starved of.
As the scene begins to fade from her mind she feels an ache of desire so deep it's painful and when she opens her eyes she looks down to see it's been at least documented in the picture in her hands. McCree sits on the edge of the bed holding the infant with it's impossibly small hand wrapped around his finger. She's looking at the two of them like she's never been more satisfied and maybe she hasn't. Ashe had a lot but satisfaction always seemed just out of reach. Was she searching for the wrong things? It's a lot to take in.
She also knows that baby. She's seen them before, held them before and wondered how she could love her own child so much, while her parents had so easily brushed her to the side.
She brings the photo against her chest as she comes back to reality and she looks at him. Her cheeks flush, because the picture is so intimate and in a way she's not used to sharing. Deep desires that Deerington seems to know, but that she hasn't acknowledged. But will McCree appreciate it, or does he have other goals that he wouldn't want to be tied down for. Besides, all of this is new. This picture is loaded, and she isn't sure what to say, because it's clear she's been shaken, though not in a negative way. ]
Future might be good... [ Is the lame response that finally leaves her. ]
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Might be? What is it?
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It was almost laughable how nervous she was considering all the wild things she openly did. For a woman who had conquered and built up a criminal enterprise to be embarrassed by having a baby, seemed silly. But it made her feel so raw to experience a desire she hadn't really given light to. She was cutthroat and dangerous, not maternal. Right? But there was Chloe and the other children and her business that had accidentally ended up doing more good than bad.
She knows she can't keep it from him, but she's embarrassed and it shows on her face as her cheeks turn a brighter shade of pink. She pulls it back and looks down at it again. He was happy in the photo, maybe he wouldn't turn away from what it suggested. Or at the very least, maybe he'd understand it was just Deerington. She could laugh it off if need be, but she found that she really didn't want to have to. Whatever this was, she wants to explore it with him. So she takes a leap of faith and hands it over to him, opening the door to a very private piece of herself. ]
Well, it's about the exact opposite of a gravestone.
[ And soon as she hands it over, she brings her nail between her teeth mindlessly biting down on it, as she looks away to try and rid herself of the blush and get control over her feelings. ]
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It’s so vastly different than what he’d assumed it to be that it doesn’t really even register at first. Ashe in bed, him and… a baby?
She’ll see the moment it clicks, the way his expression empties out with shock, his body totally still as the impact of the image hits him. This isn’t anything he’s ever considered for himself. Not even in his wildest dreams. This kind of family, this kind of peace, it wasn’t made for men like him. He’d ruled it out long ago.
Now that he’s looking right at it though, he has no idea how to feel. He swallows hard past a surge of emotion he can’t name, his thumb drifting down slowly along the edge of the photo. ]
… It’s ours?
[ He hadn’t predicted how small his own voice would sound, and how full of wonder. ]
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To his question she gives a small nod. ]
Yeah. I saw this little scene in my head. You were lookin' down at the baby and you introduced yourself as daddy. Then you looked up at me and told me we were a family.
[ It's an odd thought. It was an impossibility, it was just that the woman she was before Deerington had pushed even the thought of children aside, let alone with McCree. It's a lot to take in, but she can't say she hates the idea. On top of that the desire for that future still felt strong. ]
There's...there's something else. While you were ridin' with the undead, they had some kind of tent and inside it filled with smoke and made you see visions. I saw that kid before, You weren't there, but same kid. It was the middle of the night and I was just rockin' it.
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The same kid? At least the weirdness here is consistent.
[ The joke falls flat as his gaze is drawn back down again. It’s so unreal. He can’t stop looking for some small detail to be out of place, to mark it as obviously unreal. Clearly impossible. Yet there isn’t anything. ]
When you saw that kid before, did you… did you know you’d had it with me?
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Same baby. Same home too, I could recognize the home. I can't say that I knew I had it with you, but when I had the vision over the summer, we were in the middle of some really difficult stuff and I was still angry, and you were gone. This time, it was like I saw more of the picture is all.
[ There is a sheepish look on her face and she wasn't sure what he really thought of it all, yet. ]
I don't know what it means. I just know it's the same future I've been shown before. I...I can't really explain it...but yeah he's ours. [ After all, how was she going to ever explain the raw need she had in that moment to reach int that photo and take their child out of it and hold it close. There was a painful hold on her heart from the experience that left her feeling almost grief at having just a picture. ]
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Jesse swallows hard and hands her back the picture, suddenly unable to look at it anymore. The feelings it elicits… they feel big, too unwieldly. Showing them this future might just be the cruelest thing Deerington has done yet. ]
I think these future pictures… they show us things we want.
[ It’s hard to continue, to put the rest of it into words despite knowing they’ve both already thought about it now. What the picture means to her. ]
Is this somethin’ you want?
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Her throat felt tight again, but for a different reason. ] Showin' us what we want, huh? I don't know whether it's that or not, it's not like I thought about this kind of thing previously. I'd near forgotten the vision I saw over the summer.
[ Which is safe enough to say, especially when she's struggling to figure out his thoughts on it, then again maybe they were both clueless about how to handle the idea. She finally shrugs. ]
I don't know. I didn't think I wanted it. Never took myself for anythin' maternal. But... [ She can't figure out whether to be honest and open, or stay neutral. ] I felt like I did, when I saw it. It made me feel like I'd never wanted anythin' so badly. [ She went with honest. but she was quick to try and offset it. ] But it don't gotta be big deal or anythin', it's not like I'd hold you to makin' it happen, so we don't gotta start pickin' out names for some kid we don't even have.
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[ Of that he has no doubt. He’d have suspected it before Chloe, but seeing them interact has as good as proven it. Ashe had a hard childhood, but she would do anything to do right by a little one. He has precious little experience with mothers, but he thinks that’s what it’s all about. ]
Sounds like Deerington—or whatever puts these things together—knows it too.
[ He smiles sidelong at her, smile tight and not quite reaching his eyes. She can try and play it down, but he’d seen the look on her face. He even knows, in some small part, how it had felt to look at that photo and imagine it real. A future they could share. ]
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Well, couldn't be worse than my own.
[ But there is another thing that's still itching at her. ]
Jesse. What do you think? About this? And I don't mean the reasons for why I may have been shown it. I mean, what do you think. If we are lookin' at a snapshot of our future. You gotta have some thought on it.
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He looks away, hunching over a little as he rests his arms on his knees. What does he think? He’s scared, that’s what, but how does he say that? ]
I think… if that were really me sittin’ there, then… it’d be the happiest moment of my whole damn life.
[ He looks anything but happy though as he stares at the snow falling outside the nearest window. ]
But there’s no way I could have that. Not the house, not the… the family, the kid. Any of it. Not with my bounty, and not with ex-Overwatch agents bein’ hunted down, and how the hell would I even know how—
[ He clenches his teeth, going suddenly quiet as the snow he still has his eyes locked on. ]
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She doesn’t know entirely what he means by ‘happy’ because he doesn’t look happy, and it’s hard for her to not internalize it as a rejection, but the words he’d been saying soften that because he’d been meeting her with so much acceptance. The whole idea of it was enough to mess with her head as much as his.
Ashe holds out the photo again, pointing to him. ] That is you. Whatever comes to it, there is no if, that’s you.
[ She could guess what he meant though. They’d been playing house for the last month but that didn’t mean they were meant for it with their own, in their own world. She felt defensive all the same, almost needing to protect the vision she’d seen. Leave it to Deerington to let only one of them feel the power of it. But she didn’t want to be in that alone. ]
You can’t think of one possible way that we might not be doomed to spend our lives alone, runnin’ from the bounties, and our past in order to build a future? We may never be wholesome, but babies don’t exactly choose the situations they’re born into. And a one night stand in a hotel room is all it’d take.
[ She trailed off for a moment, following where he was looking, before glancing at him. There was more to this than just concerns about being chased and bounties. She could pick up on his fear. ]
I’m...happy. This time, with you and Chloe… it’s...I’ve been happy more than angry. I didn’t know that was possible. And we’ve been doin’ right by her, because she’s happy more than she’s angry too. [ Her words were careful and she reached out to touch his cheek and bring him back to her. ] If the only future you see is runnin’ away from your bounty and whoever has a bone to pick with you, I’ll never be able to catch up to you. Tell me what you are afraid of, Jesse? Because I ain’t lookin’ to rush this and pick out china patterns and nursery colors because of a photo. I’m just tired of losin’ what makes me happy.
CW: very brief allusion to past child abuse
That it’s even a thought that occurs to him proves, to him anyway, that he’s right about all of this. He’s not a good man, prone to lying, cheating, and running away. Not at all what a father should be, and it would take nothing more than one screw-up to ruin all that happiness Ashe is talking about. ]
I can’t promise you won’t lose me one day.
[ Because he’s a coward, he says it with his eyes closed, only aware of the touch of her hand on his cheek. ]
I stop runnin’, they catch up, and everything and everyone near me is going to get caught in the crossfire. You think Talon would think twice about hurtin’ a kid? So maybe there is no house. We go underground, or we stay on the move. But whatever we do, that kid is gonna grow up afraid. Same way I did.
[ He takes a breath in, shaky around the edges, and turns his head away from her. ]
… I won’t have a family just to hurt it, and I don’t think I know how to have one without doin’ that. What we have goin’ here, this… you and Chloe… it’s more than I deserve. And if you think I’m not afraid of losin’ it every single day, you’re dead wrong.
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She watches him and listens to him, feeling the knot tighten in her throat, she hated that she was always on the edge of combat, ready for a fight. It was taking all she had in that moment to remember Jesse wasn’t the enemy. ]
We’re in the middle of a war, it’s all around us. We come from a blood soaked society and it’s made orphans of thousands of children, tens of thousands. Life is fear. It’s violent and ugly and if you give it half an opportunity to destroy you it will. Children grow up afraid Jesse, that’s a consequence of bein’ born in our world. But they grow up, and they survive if they get taught to be strong. Who better to teach them strength than you.
[ When he turns his head away she leans forward and places her other hand on his face to turn him back and in an attempt to get him to look at her again. ]
Jesse, you just told a woman who has pretty much broken every one of the ten commandments that she’d be a good mama, so don’t you dare say you got nothin’ but hurt to give. Because everythin’ I touch turns bad, and if you believe in me than you ain’t givin’ yourself the credit you deserve. And I bet you don’t know how deep and far reachin’ Deadlock goes, because I’d bring a goddamn army to protect you, and any theoretical child that might be involved.
[ And it dawned on her then as she looks at his face, her eyes widen as it sinks in. This was where being the person that had known him the longest made it harder for him to hide. ]
You ain’t your daddy Jesse...
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But then she gets right to the center of it, hitting him dead center like a bullseye. He shuts his eyes quick, wincing from the shock of the shot; but he blinks his eyes back open this time, fixing her with a look that’s nothing but an old sadness. ]
I can’t stop thinkin’ that I’ve got some part of him in me. All the worst of it. If I ever hurt anyone the way he did to me Ashe, I…
[ He wants to stand up. Pace. Walk to the window, to the door. Go outside. Smoke. Leave. He realizes distantly how his hands are curled into fists, nails digging into his right palm. Slowly, he loosens it and rests his hand over one of hers instead. Tilts his cheek into her touch. ]
… I know it’s not right. Makes no sense. I hated him. I’d never. But talkin’ sense to it doesn’t make the idea go anywhere.
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Parents, they follow you even when you try to escape them.
[ Her thumb absently began to smooth against his cheek, and she watches him with a quiet fondness. He's been so arrogant and self assured, that she'd thought somehow he'd been successful at escaping. The truth is there before he, Blackwatch may have changed him, may have given him joy, and some of what he was looking for but it hadn't fixed the pain. ]
Chloe's afraid of men right? [ She didn't give him a chance to answer, just gently moved on. ] She told me once that you snapped at her and she drew back. She said that you are the only man in her life that's ever recognized fear in her and calmed down. She told me that you've never yelled at her since, and she felt safe enough with you to make you her daddy. That's what matters Jesse, not what we are afraid of doin', but the choices we make to not do it. I saw it in your eyes. I wish I could show you. You held that baby like it was the most precious thing in the whole world to you, like fine glass that you would protect forever in your arms. That's not a what if Jesse, that's you. Even if it never happens, that man is you.
[ She took one hand off his cheek and reached out to place it over his heart. ]
I know what it's like to be afraid of becomin' your parents, but not once Jesse have I ever seen your father in your eyes. And I've given you plenty of opportunities where I deserved a good slap across the face. And you are the man who never misses, but you always miss me. You ain't an abuser Jesse, and your daddy can't hurt you anymore, so don't let him rob you of whatever future you and I have ahead us.
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It matters less in that moment that he can’t believe it all of himself. She believes it of him, believes he can be that man she saw. One that could hold something so precious in his arms to protect rather than do it harm. He swallows hard, nearly overwhelmed.
She’d put it just the right way. Less like his father is a presence still lingering, and more like he’s something to defy. Jesse’s hand tightens on her own, eyes shining as he glances down at the hand on his chest, then back up. ]
I’ve been tryin’ with Chloe. She deserves the best damn father there is, but I think… I haven’t done so bad, maybe.
[ He blinks rapidly, giving his head a little shake with a wobbly laugh. ]
I want us to have somethin’, you and me. Somethin’ that lasts. I want to do good by you. And by Chloe. And whoever else comes along. Just… give me some time?
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